Civil War Cornfields

[Legion Para]

 

[dahenry]

Very interesting. I grew up on a farm (many years ago). it was dry land so even though we had hybrid seed, our fields were usually very uneven, as in the above example. We usually chopped the corn with a John Deere silage chopper powered by our little Ford (9N I think) and then dumped the silage into a pit silo to feed our cattle through the winter. I can't remember why, but one year my dad decided to buy a second hand corn binder to cut and bundle the corn, then shock, and bring it in as needed. The weather was perfect over the summer and we had an enormous crop; the corn was uniformly around seven foot tall and a bundle of it weighed a ton, so we struggled for weeks shocking the stuff. As it turned out, that fall/winter was so wet we couldn't get into the field. I think we turned the cattle out to eat what they could but we definitely lost most of that crop and never used the corn binder again.
After finishing this digression (down memory lane), I guess my only excuse for posting is that, for at least a few months, we had a 35 acre field that looked like the one above (minus the pumpkins).

Dave

 

[robert hayden]

interesting info. While he stated that corn & pumpkins during that period were grown for animal consumption, I have read many times stories about Confederate troops feasting on green apples & green corn,...followed by the runs. Have seen a few accounts of pumpkins roasted & eaten. Better than shoe leather. Also I might add advancing thru a full grown cornfield is one thing, advancing thru a cornfield that has been cut is quite another thing. Difficult to maintain your balance & footing.
A monumental task if you are barefoot.